--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dominic Williams
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would like to think, however, that it would not be
> necessary, in order to be successful, to resort to
> sales practices that I observe to be very common and
> which I despise (I think "manipulation" would be an
> appropriate summary, or your own term, BS).
Hi, Dominic,
Permit me to replay a bit of my long posting:
<<it is normal for humans to keep doing things that don't work, and
gladly sacrifice efficiency for comfort, and that for familiarity.>>
<<The sales job is not around efficiency, the easy sell, but moving
them into unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory.>>
Your (and Larry's) note falls fully into this category.
When I was in my 20s and a hardware engineer, it was explained to me
many times by many people that salesmanship and personal manipulation
goes on all day long in all aspects of our lives, from dating,
holding a marriage together, to getting a job and getting a raise, to
convincing other people that our ideas are sound or better.
As engineers, we find this uncomfortable and also unfamiliar: "I
didn't sign up for this sales stuff." (I have said the same myself on
many occasions).
Well, we all got signed up for this sales stuff the moment we were
born, and we have no choice about it.
The tipoff word is "shouldn't" (or in your append, "I would like to
think that it would not ...").
The word "should" or "shouldn't" implies "even the world tells me
that my belief about it is false, I hang onto it anyway." Which is
the same as saying, "I have this sneaky suspicion (or I actually
know) that I am wrong, but I don't want to face it yet."
And guess where that puts us? Right back to the key sentence: People
prefer familiarity to comfort to effectiveness.
We could all be more effective engineers if we mastered the sales
stuff and recognized that we and when we manipulate people ... and
yet we don't go through the discomfort and unfamiliarity to learn it.
Which is sort of the Q.E.D. of the message, and also highly
depressing for anyone determined to avoid the sales stuff.
So which is it that you are not interested in:
making more money, being more effective, or having more impact with
your ideas?
(you don't have to answer this, I include it only to make the point)
Alistair Cockburn
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